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Hello all!
I'm beginning an ESB helmet commission for our very own Locitus.
This is resin GMH kit #71. The kit includes the helmet, all the resin ear pieces, an
aluminum RF stalk, a 3-piece Asok RF topper kit, and a machined brass replica Borden
connector. I've done the initial trimming, cutting, sanding, exploding, jackhammering,
and other sundry tasks to prep for primer.
Here's a layout of everything that was sent. In this shot, I have temporarily placed
the brass Borden in the cheek. It won't be secured in position until the end of the paint work.

Tomorrow I'll begin puttying the PP2 physical damage to provide a smooth ESB surface.
The relatively minor ESB physical damage will then be carved into the helmet.
Much much more to come!

Happy Equinox! The days are continuing to get shorter, but that won't hold back the progress.
No pics of the messy putty stages. Prep is my least favorite part of these projects, but it's
important to get a smooth surface. I puttied all the existing physical damage and got the helmet
primered. It took a couple of applications of putty to make sure everything was leveled out and
wouldn't show after priming. But it came out nice!

I got the first color on a little while ago. This is the base color for the back panels. Once
it's dry, I'll begin stenciling for the dark green.

Now we're getting somewhere! I've been finding an hour here and an hour there over
the past couple of days to work on the helmet. But I've masked and airbrushed the
dark green onto the rear panels, and have completed the left side.

As I usually do, I begin the dark green with an overall medium coat. I try to leave it just
a bit translucent so that I can go back and darken certain areas. The patterns are very subtle,
but I trust to my reference pictures and get as close as I can.
For the gray and silver, they're done with my 000 brush. Topical takes a while, but I like the
amount of control I get over the shapes of the damage areas.
To finish off the panel, I used a sharp metal compass point to do the hair thin scratches.

Whew! Several sessions later, we have the right rear panel complete. This section always
takes me a few sittings to do. There's a lot of eye crossing detail that falls within that large
silver area, not to mention the remaining parts of the panel!

The rear panels, like a few other areas of the helmet, will receive some of the pale contrasting
gray. I tend to leave that until the end of the paint job because there's only a relatively small
amount of that color, and it's not too taxing to do it all at once.

There will be a bit of pastel weathering done toward the end of the project as well. Like I did on the
left panel, I did the very fine scratches physically with a sharp compass point.
The next stage will be to mask all of this work I just did and lay down the base color for the dome and
inner cheeks! That will be happening tomorrow.

Bringing the weekend to a close! I got the base color on the dome and inner cheeks sprayed
on, as well as the first round of weathering. I mix a slightly lightened mix of the base color
and a pale gray. In this case I used Testors camouflage gray, but any neutral light gray will
do the trick.
I airbrush the lightened mixture in cloudy patterns over the base color. This gives it a mildly
"oxidized" appearance, like you will see with a painted object that's been exposed to the elements
for a length of time. It also breaks up the starkness of that green. There are some fairly
subtle patterns on the screen used helmet, and they appear and disappear depending on the
reference pics you look at. I try to match the patterns as closely as I can.

There will be additional weathering over these areas as the paint job nears completion to further
break up the appearance.

The next stage will be to paint the outer cheeks, then do a lot of gray and silver!

I've begun the gray and silver damage. I like to start at the back of the dome because I usually have
to tweak my gray a little bit. Since the overall tone of the dome is lightened, I have to adjust my gray
so that it gives the right amount of contrast against the green. These smallish areas allow me to see
if everything is looking OK. I also get to do the network of very fine scratches. Fun!
I'll continue working around counterclockwise, doing the area behind the right ear, then moving onto the
front of the dome and eventually. . . the dent.

I've been moving around the dome the last couple of days, and here are some pics of
the work I've done.

Here is the area behind the RF ear. Still using the gray and silver, and placing the fine
scratches as I go.

Jumping over the ear arch, this is the "hump," the cat scratch, and the area above. I try to do
these 3 areas together, as the spacing between them is important to the look.

This final pic shows the area above and around the turn signals. Still using the same gray and silver
and doing the tiny scratches as I go. I generally do the tiny scratches for each section before I move
on to the next section. That way, it doesn't get too overwhelming at the end! You can see that I've
also filled in the dent with silver in preparation for the detail that surrounds it.

A machine? I'm sorry that you discovered my secret. Now you must be neutralized!

Thanks, Mathias! Here is the latest.

UPDATE: October 6, 2013

I've completed all the silver and gray that will be done before I put the killstripes on.
There are a couple more damage areas to do, but their positions are closely related to
the stripes, so I wait to do them until after the stripes are applied.

Here is the dent/streak.

The dent, like several other areas on the helmet, will receive some of the pale contrasting gray
once the majority of the paint work is complete.

I also did the large scrape across the crest of the dome.

There's quite a bit of detail going on in the scrape and it took me about 3 sessions to complete
that area. My back and elbows aren't what they used to be!

In these shots you can also see that I have carved in the ESB physical damage. I measure these
little gouges carefully, using reference pics to position them. Then I carve them with an X-acto
blade. Once everything is painted, these little nicks add a nice dimensional touch.

Next up will be the cheeks. I'll continue using my gray and silver, and once the cheeks are done,
it will be killstripe time!

Using the weekend to my advantage.
I got the right cheek done, as well as most of the left cheek.

On the picture above, it may be subtle, but the outer portion of the gray damage is a different
tone than the rest of the gray. It's more apparent in person. This is one of those cool oddities
on the ESB helmet. As far as I can determine, this is the only place where the gray is slightly different.

Tomorrow I will be able to finish the damage on the left outer cheek, then it will be killstripe time!

Stripes! Always a nerve-wracking step for me. Lots of careful masking involved
to get the stripes to look good. Here are the latest pics.

When I prep for doing the stripes, it's a good hour getting everything measured, taped off, and
liquid masked. I mask off the entire remainder of the helmet as well with clear plastic wrap. I
don't take any chances with overspray!

The stripes were actually done yesterday evening. Earlier today I began painting on the damage
that appears intermingled between and around the stripes. I've got a bit more to do, then I'll post
some more pics hopefully tomorrow.

At last, something that's not gray or silver! Got the base color down for the mandibles
this morning. Lots of masking for a relatively simple stage, but getting nice clean lines is key.
Here are a couple of shots of the increasingly Boba-like helmet.

In the shot above you can see the additional damage that's between and around the killstripes.

I won't do anything else on the actual helmet today. I like to give this coat at least a good
12 hours to really cure up hard before I begin the damage portions. But I will work on a couple
of the accessories. I'll be building a small platform to mount the resin MQ-1 insert behind the
keyslots. The circuit board is just a hair too narrow to completely span the width of the keyslot
openings. This tends to leave a lot of empty space that's visible if you look at it from an angle.
Gluing the circuit board insert onto a wider section of styrene or Sintra will fill that space and
help to give a finished look.
I also need to run by my local hobby shop and buy some more Tamiya flat black and flat white
in preparation for detailing the ear pieces. How could I have run out of black and white paint???
Shameful!

The usual midweek business only allows a little time here and there to work on the helmet.
But I've made some good progress over the last three days.

As I just mentioned in the last update, I'm now working on the red band on the rear half
of the helmet. I break this area up into three sections: left, center, and right. It makes
it much easier to focus on all the small shapes that way. Here's a shot of the center section.

I like to complete each of the sections before moving on to the next. Once I had the center
section done, I worked on the right section, including the vertical space behind the RF ear.

These shots show one of the weird illusions of the ESB helmet. The gray I'm using on the
red areas is the same gray that is used on the dome and cheeks. But against the red, it takes
on an entirely different tone. Here's some proof.

I chopped a little square of the gray and moved it up onto the dome.

The illusion holds even when the grays are right next to each other. Pretty weird, huh?

I really would like to believe the grey on the dome and cheeks is the same as the grey on the mandibles and trim, it would make perfect sense, but I can only seem to get the colours/ tones to work when the dome/ lower cheek grey is darker?

Hmm. Not sure what to say, Garrett. The last several helmets I've done, I began applying some
misty, broken patterns over the dome and inner cheeks before I added any of the gray/silver.
I mix a slightly lightened version of the base green and apply that.

For the gray, I begin with 'pure' SP Lark Dk Gray and see how it looks against the green. This
usually appears to have a bit too much contrast over the lightened green of the dome, so I begin
lightening the SP gray a little at a time with a much lighter acrylic gray. I test this until the
contrast between the green and the gray looks good by eye.

I don't really keep any formulas or anything, and I do this process for each helmet that I paint.
So this may be one of those cases of serendipity where the custom gray I mixed came out with
that odd balance.

Here's a reference shot from one of The AoSW exhibits a few years ago:

I've cropped it and done the same thing as in my previous post. I took a small square of the
mandible gray and moved it up onto the dome. It seems to show the same color shift.